The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released 45 proposed changes Thursday to rules overseeing foreign surveillance by federal agencies, including robust measures in response to past FBI abuses.

In a 72-page report, committee members demanded new transparency measures, restrictions and oversight of activities that fall under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), as well as heightened penalties for federal agents who misuse their authority under the law.

The House panel, led by Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), suggested significant changes to FISA’s so-called Section 702 authority, which will expire at the end of this year and has been a frequent target of criticism from congressional Republicans, who point to the FBI’s “widespread violations” of the law — including its “warrantless” surveillance of US citizens.

“The United States is currently at its greatest risk of a terrorist attack in nearly a decade,” Turner said in a statement. “We cannot afford to let this critical national security tool expire.”

This week, Congress averted a looming government shutdown by passing two spending bills that will provide federal funding at current levels into the next year, but lawmakers have yet to introduce a standalone measure reauthorizing section 702.

While federal courts have upheld the law’s constitutionality, the committee’s reforms would cut more than 90% of the FBI’s ability to authorize US person queries, which included “incidental collection” of communications between American citizens and foreign targets via FISA warrants.

Under the reforms, FBI agents would have to obtain a separate warrant for queries on any American for potential evidence of a crime — and could face up to eight years in prison if they leak any US citizens’ personal communications to the press or others.

The panel also proposed that search queries must be audited after six months — and that “the FBI should notify the House and Senate leaders, and the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, when the FBI queries a term that would identify a member of Congress.”

The reforms would further premise FBI compensation on compliance with the regulations and ban queries based on Americans’ political opinions or religious beliefs.

In September, the FBI issued a fact sheet detailing reforms that have already been made internally to the FISA process, which cited a 93% drop in US person queries of section 702 data between 2021 and 2022.

FISA reforms became a critical focus of GOP lawmakers after the FBI was found to have made glaring errors in its applications to surveil Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to the 2016 Trump campaign, over his purported ties to Russia.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz found “at least 17 significant errors or omissions” and ruled that the bureau “fell far short” of compliance in its FISA warrant application process as part of its Crossfire Hurricane probe, according to his office’s December 2019 report.

However, as Horowitz noted, the warrants were obtained under FISA’s Title I provisions, not Section 702, and panel members have offered fixes for both that and the approval of warrants by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Special Counsel John Durham found the bureau’s Trump-Russia probe “seriously flawed” for having used the infamous Steele dossier, which was paid for by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, to obtain FISA warrants on Page, according to his final report released in May.

Durham maintained that federal authorities could sufficiently correct the abuses with “a renewed fidelity” to laws already on the books, but flagged a suggestion from National Security Agency General Counsel Stewart Baker that a career position for a nonpartisan FBI agent or lawyer could be installed to vet FISA applications that “pose partisan risk.”

Raw intelligence collected via Section 702 is used by the FBI, CIA, NSA, and the National Counterterrorism Center to monitor foreign threats.

That intelligence “is also used to inform civilian and military officials across the government in both the executive and legislative branches,” the House Intelligence Committee wrote in an executive summary.

Other reforms involve enhanced criminal penalties for FISA violations, including the ability for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to prosecute those who engage in misconduct and a prohibition of political opposition research or press reports being used to obtain a warrant.

Members of the House and Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees would also be allowed to attend and obtain transcripts of the court hearings.

The report laid out national security successes brought about through FISA activities, including the killings of Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, accomplices of the would-be New York City subway bomber, Najibullah Zazi, and ISIS big Hajji Iman.

“In 2022, 59% of the articles in the President’s Daily Brief contained information reported by the NSA using Section 702,” the panel members said. “However, this tool, which has done so much to protect the American people, has also been abused by those who swore to support and defend the American people—in particular, the FBI.”

“With this reauthorization, Congress not only has the opportunity to protect national security, but to enact significant and meaningful reforms designed to protect American civil rights and civil liberties too,” they concluded.

The report was put together by a joint working group of members also assigned from the House Judiciary Committee, which exerts oversight of FISA authority.

Several Judiciary Committee members, including Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), have been hawkish on FISA reform and were joined in the effort by Intelligence Committee members Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.).

In keeping with their commitment to enhancing border security, the GOP-led reforms would allow the NSA to vet illegal aliens applying for visa, immigration or asylum with Section 702 queries.

Another reform vests US intelligence with “roving wiretap authority” to crackdown on “bad actors” like Mexican cartel agents who are “cycling through burner phones” in order “to thwart FISA surveillance.”